[ Academia ] [ Litigation ] [ Regulatory & Policy ] as a Relevant Course outside SLS for those interested in Accounting : For students interested in employment law, a basic understanding of business principles is key. An introductory finance or accounting class is helpful to gain a better understanding of how to evaluate a company's financial health (and, thus, the assets available to pay damages awarded in an employment case).

General course
Description:

This course aims to develop students' understanding of the relation between accounting numbers and underlying economic activity, and to develop students' ability to use accounting numbers in several decision contexts including evaluating profitability, forecasting future earnings and cash flows, selecting an appropriate financial reporting strategy, and assessing risk. Accordingly, the course will focus on several factors essential to this goal. These include understanding (1) the business environment a firm operates in, its contracting practices and their implications for what accounting principles are applied and what judgments are required; (2) the process that generates accounting numbers and its implications for the quality of those numbers for decision purposes; (3) approaches for assessing the sustainability and growth of a firm's revenues and earnings using financial statement information; and (4) approaches to evaluate earnings quality, the risk of earnings restatements, liquidity and solvency. This course should be of value to students who will be in senior positions within corporations and will determine financial reporting policies, as well as those outside corporations who will make investment or other decisions at least partially based on financial statement information.

Course Style: A Substantive course teaches the law, theory, and policy in a particular area of law